XXV 
George Bentham , F.R.S. 
the first ten volumes of the Transactions. He constituted 
himself the editor of most of the botanical papers published 
in the Transactions and Journal, in some cases earning 
the gratitude of the authors by rearranging their matter 
(with their approval), and himself rewriting their papers. 
His annual presidential addresses were remarkable for their 
wide range of knowledge, and those who knew him only 
as a systematist and descriptive botanist recognized with 
surprise the power of analysis and sound judgment which 
he displayed in these addresses, wherein he discussed evolu- 
tion in all its bearings, the writings of Haeckel, geographical 
distribution, the prospects of fossil botany, deep sea life, 
abiogenesis, methods of biological study, the histories 
and labours of the principal Natural History Societies, and 
periodicals of every civilized country on the globe. 
In respect of evolution, perhaps the most important of 
his addresses is that of 1863, dealing with discussions on 
the Origin of Species. Alluding to his own subsequent 
tardy adoption of the theory of the Survival of the Fittest, 
he says : ‘ I scarcely think that due allowance is made for 
those who, like myself, through a long course of study of 
the phenomena of organic life, had been led more or less 
to believe in the immutability of species within certain limits, 
and have now felt their theories rudely shaken by the new 
light opened on the field by Mr. Darwin, but who cannot 
surrender at discretion so long as many important outworks 
remained contestable.’ In correspondence with Mr. Darwin 
on some of these outworks, the latter in a letter dated June 
19, 1863, alluding to the effect of the address as a whole, 
wrote 1 : ‘I verily believe that your address, written as it 
is, will do more to shake the unshaken and bring in those 
leaning to our side than anything written in favour of trans- 
mutation.’ It is interesting to find in later addresses, a frank 
acceptance of evolution, in such passages as those in which 
he recognizes ‘ the coexistence of indefinite permanency, and 
of gradual or rapid change in different races in the same 
1 Life and Letters, Vol. iii, p. 26. 
